Articles
ECONOMICAL QUESTIONS OF VEGETABLE FORCING IN HUNGARY
The vegetable crops occupying 2.3–2.7 per cent of the field area give a yield of 1.6–1.8 million tons a year.
This meets the demand of the population for fresh greens for immediate consumption at the level of the European average (71+17 /88/ kg/head), and supplies conserve industry with the majority of its raw material demand.
There is fresh vegetable for export (though varying and somewhat decreasing) while the export of preserved and frozen vegetables increases.
Import is fluctuating in volume, its ratio is negligible.
About 80 per cent is carried on in large-scale farms, but the importance of production in small gardens is increasing; large estates take a smaller share in forcing even at present, only about 30 per cent.
Characteristic of the level of production is the simultaneous existence of various technologies, some of them at medium level based mainly on hand-labour; and others more up-to-date and mechanized, with the former being still prevalent.
This applies to the variety assortment, in the last resort to the yield and the quality of crop.
Considering the continuous increase of demands, the rapid rise in the costs of production and the decrease of live labour, vegetable growing has got into great difficulty (both in field and forcing houses). The income of producing farms has continuously decreased, production has lost its own sources for development.
To improve the situation in the present plan period of national economy (5th five-year plan) the Government had a comprising program elaborated and adopted for the development of vegetable growing.
The program touches upon biological (sowing seed, variety, etc.), technical (mechanization, chemization), economic (investment subvention, development fund benefits, changes in price, etc.) and also organizational measures to be taken.
In the framework of these latter the Government supports:
- the establishment of model farms;
- the expansion of technological integration and co-operation (production systems);